Corrigindo "abusos" na terra dos muitos usos : Estado, proprietários e disputas por terras públicas no primeira Comissão Revisora de Títulos de Terra (Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 1938-1946)

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation addresses the conceptions of property rights in the Primeira Comissão Revisora de Títulos de Terras [First Land Title Revision Commission] (1938- 1946), created in the context of the Getúlio Vargas government. In this research, I will assess the actions of the State and land occupants in the face of the dictates of the title investigation commission. Articulating the references of the Social History of Property with the History of the Estado Novo Vargas, I aim to understand the social and political aspects of the legitimacy and legality of these rights, their support base, and economic functionality. To achieve this goal, the locus of analysis will be the National Farm of Santa Cruz, the Union's own national, located in the State of Rio de Janeiro, and which received the commission's action. By promoting a reading based on Jaques Revel's game of scales, I will discuss how the State, the occupiers – notably from the middle and upper classes – and the Justice dealt with disputed conceptions of property. In the first part, the role played by the concept of own nationals will be investigated, beinghe socio-environmental configuration of the Fazenda Nacional de Santa Cruz and the conceptions of men of the State in dealing with property. In the second part, the debate turns to the scale of land occupants, highlighting the clashes placed on the property until the conclusion of the work of this Commission in 1946, also considering the role of justice in this context. At this stage, I will observe how the occupants used privileges and economic and subjective resources to assert their conceptions of property. In the end, I assess multiple elements that forge such conceptionsents, and these constructions are activated according to moments of tension and questioning their validit.